Booty
by Luan Mao
Summary: To the victor go the spoils. But if you don't grab what's in front of you when you have the chance, you'll end up with nothing.
1. Tracey

**Disclaimer**: Go ahead, tell people I created the characters used in this story. Do it in front of me, so I can point at you and laugh.

**Author's Note**: This was supposed to be one of my "Midgets", just a few paragraphs long, but it grew. And _that_ is the main reason I didn't want to start a collection of story fragments in the first place. Believe it or not, there were shorts and novellas and a children's story and several non-fiction books I was supposed to be working on, things that would bring in income to support my precious babies. This wasn't any of those. OK, rant over. We apologize for the inconvenience.

**Booty**

"Potter. I haven't seen you in a while."

"Davis. You're looking well. And I have good reason for keeping out of sight. Maybe you didn't notice, but everyone and his brother have been wanting me to do things for them every time I show my face for the past six months."

Tracey winced but didn't correct the one mistake in what he'd said. "Ah, that's awkward, since I was about to ask you for help."

Potter frowned slightly but said, "I have a couple of other stops this afternoon. You can walk with me and tell me what you need so long as you don't get too annoying." He didn't say it, but his eyes dipping to the neckline of her robe suggested the reason for his unusual cordiality. Tracey thanked the luck that had her choosing this outfit this morning. She'd been making the best of a bad situation, but getting Potter to let her talk to him was a good bonus.

"Thanks. We might run into Daphne, you remember her, Daphne from school, and if we do I'll have her join us. I saw her a few minutes ago and she has the same problem I do."

"Fine. I'm getting potions first."

As expected, Potter was accosted several times in the few minutes on the way to the potions shop. "Mr Potter, the minister hasn't received your response. We can expect you at the ball, can we not?" "Would you care to endorse our line of …" "I love you!"

Tracey didn't have a chance to make her pitch for Potter's help. She was barely able to get two words in around the pushy petitioners. Obviously she'd have to be pushy herself, but this wasn't the place. She was glad of the delay, actually. She'd spotted Potter by chance and a half-formed plan leapt into her mind and had her approaching him before she finished thinking it through.

Daphne did join them, exiting a beauty parlor just as Tracey and Potter passed.

"Greengrass," Potter said neutrally. "I'd say you're looking well, but it would be a lie."

Neither of the women bothered to correct him. His observation was correct, and the incorrect part wasn't worth correcting. Daphne's hair was perfect and her features were still lovely and she was wearing nice clothes, but she also wore an air of depression. Desperation, maybe. Tracey sympathized completely. If anything, Daphne had it worse than she did.

The petitioners kept pressing Potter in the potions shop and back on the street. The only break was when Potter picked up a pair of boots he'd had repaired, and that was probably only because the boot maker's shop had no room for fan girls and reporters and beggars to come in. If this was what Potter had to put up with, it was no wonder he avoided going anywhere that people would recognize him.

"Potter, this isn't working. All these idiots…" Tracey waved her hand, ignoring the offended look on a predatory young woman's face. "Can we take you to lunch, someplace we can talk quietly? Our treat."

"It'll have to be the Leaky Cauldron," Daphne put in, speaking for almost the first time. "Archer's is redecorating and their private rooms are closed. We can rent a room with a table at the Cauldron and have lunch sent up. The food will be plainer, but we'll have some privacy."

At the pub's counter, Tracey asked Old Tom for a private dining room for a meeting, speaking up so that onlookers could hear. She knew there were no private dining rooms, only large bedrooms which had a table and chairs, but perhaps the loud request would stop tongues wagging about Harry Potter going up to a rented bedroom with two women he was not married to.

Not that she particularly cared about Potter's reputation or his problems, of course, but in this instance her reputation would be dragged down with his. Worse, even, because of the male-female double standard and because of the family situation that was currently weighing her down.

Lunch arrived in their rented room before the three had gotten beyond pleasantries and a bit of catching up – although the catching up frequently ran aground because most of Tracey and Daphne's friends and relations had been on the opposite side of the war as Harry. His statement, "Jeremy Vining? I don't know why his family told you that. He didn't leave the country to get away from the war. I killed him about a year ago in an ambush." resulted in an awkward pause, and it was a relief when Hannah Abbot, who apparently had gotten a job as waitress, knocked at the door.

They spent just a moment catching up with their old classmate before Tom bellowed for her to stop lallygagging and get back to work. Tracey cursed to herself. She'd wanted to make sure Abbot realized this was a working meeting, not a tryst. Abbot hadn't been a major gossip in school, but she'd sometimes been a spiteful blabbermouth.

"How lovely to see her again," Harry said sarcastically. "She wore one of Malfoy's badges in our fourth year and bad-mouthed me a couple of times that I overheard. Then her trying to suck up to me in fifth year, after I told a couple of people about some of my, um, adventures, that made it worse, really.

Once again, Tracey had to hide a wince. She and Daphne had worn "Potter Stinks" badges, too. They didn't have much choice in the matter, but that might not matter to him.

After the adequate but not fancy lunch was finished was a better time to raise her request with Harry, Tracey reflected. More to the point, after the third adequate but not fancy bottle of wine had been opened was a better time.

Unfortunately, even after most of a bottle of wine to herself, Daphne was still quiet and depressed. Tracey would have to carry the conversation.

"So, Harry…"

"I was wondering if you were going to work up the nerve to ask me whatever you were going to ask me for."

"I was waiting for the right moment." And it sounded like the wine was affecting him a bit. Good. "To make a long story short, Daphne and I are married."

"Congratulations, I suppose. But I guess your marriages have something to do with whatever your problem is."

"Yes. Our husbands bought us from our families."

"'Bought'? What? Slavery? Chattel wives?"

"Not quite. After You Know Who's side lost, all the marked Death Eaters and a lot of survivors were arrested and trials were scheduled."

"Yes, I know. I noticed how the aurors appeared again after the war was won. Not won by them, I'll point out. And I noticed that most of the trials never took place. Just imagine how happy I was to see wizards walking around free a month after I beat them and captured them when they were doing a midnight attack. I should have killed them all, not taken any prisoners."

This time Tracey couldn't keep the wince from showing. Daphne covered hers by taking another sip of her wine.

"I can't say you're wrong, but some of those wizards are our family. Of course my grandfather and Daphne's uncle were going to do whatever they could to keep them alive and out of prison."

"Yes, no matter how much it cost to line someone's pocket," Harry sneered.

"I don't think it was bribe money, Harry. Or not much. The Wizengamot allowed the prisoners to pay fines to avoid a trial. The fines were to be used to rebuild all the destruction."

"Bribes would have been less than the fines, I think," Daphne put in. "It looks like we have an honest minister for once. My uncle was complaining about it."

Harry snorted. "It doesn't matter if he's honest or not, his bodyguards are honest and report to Conner in DMLE. He's watched too carefully to be as corrupt as Bagnold, last time, or Fudge more recently."

"Be that as it may, a lot of families had to come up with a mountain of galleons in a hurry," Tracey continued. "Not everyone had the cash available."

"So get a loan. Mortgage the manor house. What's the problem? And why is this my problem?"

"The manor houses can't be mortgaged because they're, ah…"

"Entailed," Daphne supplied.

"Yes, they're entailed so they can't be sold or mortgaged. Our family sold some of our jewelry and other properties, but it didn't bring in nearly enough. Four of my uncles and cousins were facing trial."

"My father sold his business for sickles on the galleon. It wasn't enough, either."

"So, what, you want me to loan you money to keep your cousins out of the Veil of Death? Fat chance. Even if I had any money, which I don't, I wouldn't use it to help Death Eaters."

Tracey had to bite her tongue. Getting Potter to help them was their best bet, or at least the best she'd thought of so far. Besides, the conclusion he'd leapt to wasn't unreasonable.

"_No_, we're not asking you for money. Our grandfather and uncle made arrangements, and our relatives have been freed. _How_ he raised the money…"

"I'm with you. You mentioned your husbands bought you, but then I got distracted when you talked about freed Death Eaters. OK, so some old, rich men bought themselves teenage wives. What's the problem? You agreed to it, right? So, what, now you want out of the deal, after you got the money?"

"No." "Yes!"

Tracey glared at her friend and former housemate. To be honest, she'd love to get out of her marriage to the heir-apparent of a rich mercantile family, a wizard who made up for his lack of charm and social graces with arrogance and body fat. However, Daphne blurting it out didn't help their cause. If you ignored the claims of proven liars like Draco Malfoy and the Daily Prophet, Potter – Harry – had the reputation of being painfully straightforward and honorable. He'd defeated You Know Who and all his Death Eaters almost single-handed, then never tried to use his popularity for his own benefit, to become Minister or anything else. He did it all because it was the right thing to do. A man like that wouldn't help them cheat their way out their half of an arrangement.

Harry's next words confirmed her fears. "Right. Count me out. You made your beds, so lie in them. Literally, I'm guessing. See you around, or not."

Damn Daphne! To be fair, Daphne had it worse. Her husband was a shriveled, wrinkled, saggy centenarian who'd outlived his wife and children and other descendants and needed a young, fertile brood mare to make him an heir. He "serviced" her twice daily, insisted on her degrading herself to get him in the mood, and punished her when his ancient body did not get her pregnant.

Tracey's husband, by contrast, was in no hurry to get her belly swollen and make his glittering trophy wife less attractive at the endless, pretentious parties they went to. On the bad side, he was also in no hurry to roll off of her when he fell asleep on top of her every night. Oh, it was a delight, two minutes of lying there while he enjoyed himself, followed by ten minutes of struggling to get free so she could breathe.

"No, Harry, please don't leave just yet," Tracey said, putting a hand on his arm as he stood. "Ignore what the Sauce Princess says. While Daphne and I would be delighted to be free of our husbands – so long as it didn't put our relatives back in DMLE custody – I wasn't about to ask you to do anything dishonorable. Even though our husbands aren't exactly keeping their end of the deal. They did give our families the money, but they sure aren't honoring us as their wives."

"Gemma and my husbands both told us that we don't deserve any better because of our families, and they'll treat us however they like and the DMLE won't do anything about it," Daphne said quietly. "I never would have agreed to it if I'd known what it was going to be like. I thought I was going to be a wife, not a, a slave and a, a…" She downed the rest of her goblet and lapsed back into silence.

Harry looked at them both skeptically. "Fine. You bought lunch, so I'll stay and listen at least as long as the wine holds out."

Tracey pointedly moved the wine farther from Daphne. The half bottle remaining wouldn't last five minutes if the blonde wasn't stopped.

"OK, so back on track, what _are_ you asking me for? And I'll ask you again, how does this have anything to do with me, and why should I get involved? Especially, why should I help you two? Just like Abbot, I saw you two wearing those badges back when we were fourteen."

Damn! Tracey had hoped Harry hadn't noticed or hadn't remembered or at least wouldn't hold the badges against them.

"I'm not going to defend myself for wearing it, Harry. I will ask that you not hold it against me. Us. You have some idea of what being in Slytherin was like, don't you? We did what we had to, to survive."

"It was nothing personal, Potter," Daphne added. "As Tracey said, we pretty well had to do it. You weren't really on my radar at all in school. You were small and scrawny, not a stud like you are now."

"Thank you, Daphne," Tracey said, rolling her eyes and trying and failing to protect the last of her goblet of wine from a quick grab. "Perhaps you should leave persuading Harry to those of us who are sober."

Her friend wasn't entirely wrong. Harry wasn't the scrawny, raggedy waif from their school years, but if he hadn't defeated You Know Who, no one would be asking him to pose for posters. No doubt Daphne was comparing him to her raisin of a husband. Add beer goggles – wine goggles – and it was a surprise that she wasn't dragging Harry over to the room's bed, just behind her chair.

Damn herself for thinking that! Harry didn't look bad at all, now that she was sitting here and taking a good look at him. He didn't weigh forty stone. Certainly not half that. Not even a third. His arm when she had touched it was muscular and firm, not fat at all.

Tracey realized she'd better wrap this up quickly. She pushed the last bottle toward him. "Here, Harry, you finish this. I think we two have had enough." Deprived of her sustenance, Daphne just sat and nodded agreement with whatever Tracey said, which she kept up for most of the rest of the conversation.

"Fine," he said, emptying the bottle into his goblet. "So, again, what do you want from me?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I saw you this morning and just had the idea to ask for help. I know that we, Daphne and I and a few other young witches from similar families, are very unhappy with what we've had to do, and I know that we want to keep our families safe, and I know that we don't know what to do."

Time to turn it up a bit. "I'm not sure that all of us 'purchased' brides are safe. I should be fine, but Daphne's husband is abusive. I've heard stories about some of the others, as well. _Please_, Harry, can't you find it in your heart to do something?"

Harry thought for a minute, sipping the last of the wine. "You want to get away from your husbands but you don't want them to know you've left and take the money back from your families. The only thing I can think of – and this is just talking, I'm not saying I'll do anything and it's just because you've gotten me pretty drunk – the only thing I can think of is to fake your deaths. Or fake kidnapping yourselves, leave a ransom note and disappear. I don't know if that's a good idea or not. Maybe if I think about after I've sobered up I'll see a problem with it or think of some other ideas."

"Harry, that's brilliant! Do you think you could? Could you help Daphne and me?"

"Hey, hang on! I said I was just talking. I wouldn't even know how to fake a death."

"But you killed You Know Who when no one else could! You can do anything!"

"Yah, I killed him. I spent a year learning everything I could and then tracking him down, then I fought his people and then I fought him. I almost died fighting him.

"And when I got out of the St Mungo's, do you know what I got for everything I'd done?"

"A medal. They announced a ceremony to give you the Order of Merlin, but you didn't show up. Someone said later that you turned it down."

"Yah, they offered their heart-felt thanks and a medal that came with strings attached – if I wanted to get it, I had to support the Minister and the aurors and go to all sorts of events so they could show me supporting him. Of course I turned it down.

"No, the only thing I ever got was a hospital bill. The aurors got paid for working – not that they did much in the war – and if any of them got hurt the ministry paid for it, and they weren't even there when I killed Voldemort. I did the work and didn't get paid and got a hospital bill that emptied my vault and still left me in debt. I've had to take some of the endorsement deals for a broom and whatever, even though they ripped me off, just to have money to live on."

"That's terrible! I had no idea. But… but what about girls? You're a young man, and just this morning I saw how pretty young witches were trying to get your attention. Surely that should keep you happy, at least for the time being."

Harry shot her a dirty look. "You've never thought that through. Have I ever seemed like an attention hound? Ignore what the Prophet was saying when Fudge was smearing me, and ignore that scumbag Snape. No, never. I want my privacy and a quiet life.

"Now think about the kind of girl who wants to have a quick fling with someone famous. Ignore the young teenagers, just look at a grown-up fangirl. She wants the attention. She wants everyone to know she scored with The Famous Harry Potter. She wants the glamor, fancy restaurants and expensive gifts and parties. I don't want any of that, and even if I did, I don't have the money for it."

"You're right. I'd never thought about it."

"I'll admit, I didn't either, not at first. I went with a couple of the fangirls and spent more than I could afford and had a fun night or a fun week, until someone waved a copy of _Witch Weekly_ in my face, where the girls had sold their story. Including about what a tight-wad I am.

"It didn't take me long to realize that I couldn't trust any of them. Couldn't trust anyone wanting to be my friend, couldn't trust anyone with the ministry. Couldn't even trust anyone wanting to do business with me, because they wanted me to trust a handshake deal and wouldn't sign a contract, and then didn't keep up their end afterward.

"I worked my heart out for everyone else and almost died and now I have nothing. I'm worse off than I was before.

"So you'll excuse me if I ask what's in it for me before I lift a finger for anyone ever again."

"I understand. You need to get away as much as we do. I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement." Tracey nodded slowly before stepping around the table. She made sure Harry was looking at her before she slipped her robes off her shoulders, letting them pool on the floor. Daphne's followed, seconds later.

She'd expected Harry to help them just because they needed help, but this was better. As she said, a mutually beneficial arrangement.

* * *

><p>I can't be the only one who gets tired of the fanon (and to some extent canon) trope of Harry nobly giving his all for the benefit of others, whether or not they'd injured him in the past, and getting virtually nothing for it, and then saying "Thank you, Sir, may I have another?"<p> 


	2. Daphne

Daphne was well on her way to drunk. She was celebrating. She was free! Free of the old man, free of the uncle who'd sold her to that old man, free of her Death Eater relatives. Rescued! Free!

And here was her savior, coming back to his apartment with food and more wine! That deserved a reward.

Daphne's reward for Harry grew heated and aggressive as her hands felt the _not old_ and _not wrinkled_ man she was kissing. Food and wine could wait.

She was forgetting something. Oh, right. Tracey. Well, Tracey was welcome to join them in the apartment's one bed, or she could sleep on the couch. Daphne had better things to worry about, like getting Harry's shirt out of the way.

The next morning, she had to deal with both a mild hangover and the shame of having spent the night naked with a woman and a man, even if they were her best friend and the man who'd rescued her from her terrible marriage.

Easing out of the bed was a challenge – she had to do it quickly enough to be out before the others woke up and saw her, but slowly enough not to wake them. Finally free, she gathered up her clothes and dashed to the shower to try to wash herself clean.

"Morning, pretty lady." Harry had come in and seen her. Damn! Figuring out how to use the plumbing had taken too long. Daphne covered herself with her hands as best she could, while telling Harry to get out. Honestly! Didn't he know a girl needed her privacy?

The three made plans over a not-quite-adequate breakfast made from Harry's almost empty larder. It wasn't really enough after a stressful day and a long, busy night.

"So, ladies. This morning we need to exchange some of the gold you brought with you for regular money so we can buy food and get you a change of clothes. After that, you need to decide what you're going to do, stay with me or go your own way or what."

"I don't know about Daph, but I'll have to stay with you at least long enough to arrange to leave the country. I can't be seen around here."

"That's fine if that's what you want. I never learned much about it, but I'm sure it'll take money to get you away and more money to get you set up wherever you go. Unless you have another way to get money or can think of another way to do it, you'll have to work in the muggle world for a while."

Tracey grimaced. "If I have to. I'd just as soon stick to my own world, thank you very much."

Daphne put in, "I still don't see why we can't get money from our husbands. It's only fair they have to pay for us. We're their wives, you know."

"Yes, their wives who have left their husbands, after getting a bucket of gold for their families. Don't push me on that, Daphne. I'm having a hard enough time helping you get away from your husbands even without taking their money. Not so much you, but Tracey's husband didn't do anything to deserve me 'kidnapping' his wife."

"Well! I guess I shouldn't suggest killing my husband. I am his wife and beneficiary, you know." Daphne rolled her eyes when Harry startled and drew in a breath to yell at her. "It was a _joke_, Harry." It was only mostly a joke. She certainly wouldn't cry herself to sleep if she got his money and could rejoin her world.

Over the next several days, Harry showed her and Tracey around Manchester. He'd gotten a small apartment in this city because for some reason almost no wizards and witches lived there. And he gave them lessons in living in the non-magical world. They'd been utterly clueless. Daphne had taken Muggle Studies for three years, but it seemed that the class had been as useless as some of the Muggleborn had said. It had been an easy OWL, but maybe it wasn't a good use of her time.

They traded in their coins and jewelry. They'd had only a bit of shopping money when they'd been "kidnapped", plus their wedding rings and all the jewelry Tracey could justify wearing.

And, last thing, they went about establishing identities for the two women. This was pretty well a failure, as computerization made a simple laminated card almost useless for getting a job or going to the doctor. Fake identities were still possible, but not quickly, easily, or cheaply.

"I'm not sure what we should do, ladies," Harry said, scratching his chin after a week of unsuccessful efforts. "It's going to cost a bucket to find someone in the government and bribe him to set you up."

"I still think we should use spells to get them," Tracey pushed. "Get an appointment with anyone, cast truth and babbling spells so he'll tell us who we really need to see, and then do it again and get it all done in a few hours."

"No," Daphne refuted. "There's too much chance of being caught. The ministry doubled the number of inspectors checking on abuse of Muggles and misuse of magic. I don't know about you, but I don't think I can cast Confundus smoothly enough to get away with it."

"I agree with Daphne. Maybe it's not so bad for you to be caught, Tracey, but we all know what Daphne's marriage was like. You can bet it'll be worse if she's brought back. And I'll be tried for kidnapping you if anyone magical finds out where you are. I'm not ruling it out, but I'd rather go with something lower-risk. Like…" he paused before continuing in a rush. "Like, a fake marriage. That would work for only one of you. We could go to someplace where it's cheaper to get fake paperwork, Eastern Europe, I guess, and have a fake marriage, then come back here and get real British paperwork for you."

Daphne's mouth curled down. "I'll say No, thank you. I've had enough marriage to last me for a while, I think."

"I'll say Maybe," Tracey said. "It's not my first choice, but I'm not against it. You're not a bad guy, no matter how many times you say you're not going to do anything for anyone. Still, what's in it for you, Harry? You've made it clear that you're not helping people any longer unless there's something in it for you."

Harry shrugged. "You're pretty nice, or that's what it seems these past few days." He grinned. "Plus, we might be inspected by the immigration office. We'd have to share a bed and pretend to be married until your paperwork was final."

Tracey smacked Harry in the shoulder, but she was laughing when she did it. More power to her, if she went that way. Maybe Harry would be so taken with his new "wife" that Daphne could cut down on the wine in the evening.

It would take a while before they could either bribe a British official or travel to the continent and create fake identities there. Harry was as impoverished as he'd said. Cynical Tracey had an explanation for his trouble earning a living. "I'll bet the bigger businesses – the ones which are paying you for endorsements – are helping the ministry punish you for not supporting them. It's all an old boys network. The owners of the bigger businesses and the minister and the department heads all go to each others' parties and marry their daughters to the others' sons."

"All the department heads except Weasley, of course," Daphne clarified. "He should be part of the group, but can't afford to keep up."

"Whatever happened to the Weasleys, anyway?" Tracey asked. "You were always with Ron and the word was that you were friends with all of them."

Harry shrugged. "We drifted apart. Arthur – the father – and Percy – you might remember him, he was Head Boy, and went into the ministry – they both thought I should have played the game. Take the medal, endorse the minister, go to the parties, endorse the products, work the system. I told them I couldn't do any of that because I didn't believe in it, and they just didn't understand. They just kept telling me to compromise, that I wouldn't get anywhere if I didn't work with the system, all that. The rest of the Weasleys went along, called me a fool for not taking everything I could get."

"Bureaucrats," Tracey nodded. "What matters is working the system. I saw some of that, growing up. Of course, my family was mostly interested in pulling down the system and then building up a new system with themselves in charge."

"Was Granger the same, Harry?" Daphne asked. "You were always with her, too, in school."

"Pretty much the same. She's totally rejected her old life and is doing everything she can to fit into her new life. She thinks I need to fit in, too, and that trying to go my own way will doom me to failure." He shrugged. "It looks like she's right, but I just can't kiss ass and play the game."

"Right," Tracey agreed. "Harry Potter kicks ass and takes names."

Daphne was confused, but Harry laughed and asked where Tracey had heard that expression. "Just around" was all she could say.

As everyone got ready for bed, Daphne drank the last of the wine in the apartment, continuing the pattern of the past several nights. Even with comfort charms, the couch just wasn't suitable to sleep on, and she needed help if she was going to spend the night tangled up with the other two.

...ooo000ooo...

It was a strained conversation over the kitchen table.

Harry had come in from a day of drudgery on a job which had nothing to recommend it except helping to keep the bills paid. He'd seen Daphne in the middle of changing out of her work clothes, given her an over-the-top leer and lusty chuckle, scooped her up over his shoulder, and deposited her on the bed.

Not many minutes later, they were sitting, cleaned up and clothed, at the table.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I just don't want to be anywhere near you if I can avoid it. Naked, I mean."

"I don't understand. You were all over me last night. You've been all over me every night since I 'kidnapped' you in London. What's changed? Did I hurt you?"

"No, no, nothing like that. _You_ never hurt me. It was my husband. I'm sorry, Harry."

"I understand that, I guess, but what about you pulling my clothes off and dragging me to the bed every night?"

Daphne shrugged. "I have a glass or two before bed. It gets me through the night."

Her benefactor frowned and thought for a minute. "We only have one bed. I guess we can buy another, but there's no place to put it. The apartment is crowded already, with the three of us. You or Tracey could change the couch, if you're good enough with transfiguration. And it's only been a week, but I've gotten used to sleeping with you, and Tracey, too. And, not to be blunt, lots of sex was part of my price for getting you away."

She shrugged again, not able to meet his eyes. "Keep wine in the house and I'll do you every night. I can't support myself yet and I'll kill myself before I go back to my husband, so that's something I just have to deal with. Don't worry about it, Harry. It's not _that_ bad. Oh, ah, sorry. I don't mean it like that, Harry; it's not you, it's me. Give me some wine in the evening to get me in the mood and some privacy in the morning to get myself together and it'll be fine."

She didn't know what else to tell him. She didn't know what to tell herself. When she'd been drinking, she was all over him, just like he said. When she sobered up in the morning, she had a cry in the shower. It wasn't great, but it was the best she could do for now.

...ooo000ooo...

Tracey and Harry returned to the apartment with giant grins, more groceries than the apartment had ever seen, and hot, savory takeaway.

"Daphne! Wake up! We did it, Harry did it, he sold three of my prototypes today!"

Daphne dragged herself out of bed as Harry was saying "It was all your work, Tracey. All I did was find someone to give us money to make them." She'd been feeling off for several days and had finally gone to see a discrete healer her sister had found for her. (Daphne had quietly kept in touch with Astoria. Her family was very important to her, especially now that she'd given up everything else from her old life.) The healer had given her the news that very afternoon. It was bad news, possibly catastrophic news, depending on how the others took it.

Should she share with Harry and Tracey? It would be a pity to bring them down, they were so happy about their idea for making metal things for businesses. It didn't make sense at all, but Harry had told her that Muggles could make a lot of a thing very cheaply, but it cost a lot to make just one of something. Tracey was the best of them at transfiguration and shaping charms, so she made a few very intricate metal things as samples and then Harry went around to Manchester's many, many manufacturers to see if their new business could get contracts to make other things with their "proprietary secret method". Judging by the food and the smiles, two weeks' work had finally paid off.

Meanwhile, Daphne was working in a small, family-owned restaurant. She was a _capable_ witch, but not an especially skilled one. She wasn't good enough to help on the metal transfiguration and wasn't familiar enough with the Muggle world to help Harry make sales. Her Outstanding NEWTs in Arithmancy and History of Magic were of no use whatsoever in any job, so she was stuck waiting tables under the table, paid in tips and meals. Her only real value to their "family" was sleeping with Harry, and that led to…

Harry was still jabbering along. "Part of my research was looking into how much demand there was for metal prototypes, and how much we could charge for custom work. The answer, a lot and a lot. The three pieces we delivered today paid our bills for most of a month. And it didn't take Tracey too long to do them, either, right?"

"About five hours for the three, including redoing the one about a dozen times to get the, what do you call it, tolerance."

"Right, not very long. I'll spend more time making sales calls and haggling prices. And you, Daphne, if we can make just a few more sales, we'll be able to have you working our front desk and getting the telephone. You'll be able to sit all day, not have to be on your feet all day. I know you hate that job."

She'd never have a better opening for her news. "That's great news. I'm not going to be able to stay on my feet all day for much longer. If I can work sitting down, I can keep working for a while."

Harry frowned and opened his mouth, but Tracey beat him to the question. "What's wrong, Daphne? We can take you to a healer or a doctor if you need it. Are you sick?"

"Not too sick, just a bit of morning sickness."

Jaws dropped, just as she expected.

"Mine?" Harry croaked. Daphne was tempted to laugh. You wouldn't think that the single-handed vanquisher of a dark lord could turn quite that pale.

"It's too soon to test, but I'm pretty sure it's yours, Harry. My husband tried for half a year to father a child and couldn't manage it. You managed it in a month. Maybe even less than a week, depending on just when you caught me."

"Congratulations." Tracey didn't sound sincere. Quite the opposite. "Well done, both of you idiots. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking I was in bed with two hot babes," Harry said, frowning at her. "Babies never occurred to me. If I even thought about it, I'd have thought you two were taking care of it."

"What about you, Tracey?" Daphne asked, annoyed at her friend's criticism. "Maybe Harry got you, too." Tracey's look of panic gratified her. She was already stressed and Tracey wasn't being a good friend.

Having gotten the other two in a nice tizzy before they rushed out to buy a Muggle home pregnancy test, Daphne put away the groceries and then sat down to Chinese take-away. She was eating for two now.

...ooo000ooo...

After just a month, their business was running steadily enough to end their financial worries, even with Harry's insistence on paying that ridiculous debt from St Mungos. And after Daphne accidentally revealed to the others that she had kept in contact with her sister (and after she'd defused the others' annoyance over that), she relayed a message from Astoria, that another young woman needed to be rescued from her marriage. She'd been wondering how to give Harry the message for a week now, but her slip of the tongue the day before made that part easier, anyway.

"Harry, do you remember Gemma? Gemma Delisle, a Ravenclaw a year ahead of us?"

"Uh…"

"Long, straight, brown hair, pretty?"

"Oh! Right, Gemma Delisle. Friendly girl."

Daphne laughed. "You mean 'flirty'. Yes, that's her. Some of her relatives were Death Eaters."

"Let me guess, sold to a rich husband who's not treating her well."

"Worse than my husband, it sounds like. Do you think—"

"Why should I bother?" Harry interrupted. "I get that maybe she's not doing great, but why is it my problem? I rescued you two because, ah, you were very persuasive in changing my mind that afternoon—" He had to wait a moment for the snorts to die down. "What, you wanted me to say you blew my brains out?"

And now Harry had to wait for Tracey to stop hitting him. Daphne was too embarrassed to respond in any way. She did things when drunk that she didn't like to think about when sober.

"Ahem. If I may continue, I helped you two because I got something out of it, and now we're all working together to make a life and a business. We're doing things for each other, that's the main part, it's not just me doing something for someone for nothing. Are you suggesting that Gemma do the same as you?"

"She might be willing to…" Daphne began, thinking that Harry might leave her alone some nights if he had a new girl to sleep with.

Harry seemed neither approving nor disapproving of the suggestion, but Tracey was clearly disapproving. "I think Harry is stretched quite thin enough as it is, Daphne. He doesn't need any other women in his life." Daphne almost thought she heard her muttering, "I don't need to share a bed with any more women."

Harry scowled. "I'm not your property, Tracey. I'm not even your husband. You don't make decisions for me and you don't tell me what to do. If you want any say in my personal life, we can talk about getting married, or some other long-term thing."

Damn Harry for being so prickly and damn Tracey for being so possessive and not keeping her mouth shut!

"Can we ignore our relationship issues and focus instead on whether Gemma can pay for being rescued?" Daphne suggested. "I believe she can. Her husband has a number of valuable paintings. If you 'kidnap' her from home rather than from Diagon Alley, you can take the paintings at the same time. I don't know about you, but I would love to decorate our apartment a bit."

"I don't think I'll be stealing from her husband, Daph. Not unless there's more to it than just him not being nice enough to her."

"But Harry…"

"No, Daphne, I'm serious. It's the same as I told you two, a couple months ago. I'll help rescue some women from abusive husbands if I get something out of it, but I'm not going to steal from them beyond taking the wives they paid for. Not unless they've done something to hurt me themselves."

"Why are you being so stiff-necked about this, Harry? We're not talking about good men here."

Harry gazed flatly at the two witches for a moment before answering. "Think about what I did last year. Almost all by myself, just one or two people helping once or twice, I ambushed about a dozen teams of Death Eaters. I beat them every time, and usually did it so fast and so easily that I could capture most of them instead of kill them or let them get away – that's why there were so many who were buying their way out of trials. And then I found where Voldemort was staying and I just walked in and blasted every living thing to pieces. I took some spells – I spent a week in the hospital, you know – but that's not much, considering I fought over a dozen Death Eaters plus Voldemort all at the same time. And I killed them all in a few minutes."

"I… didn't know any of that," Tracey admitted.

"How on earth did you do it, Harry? No one could manage that, not even Dumbledore."

"Power. I have no idea how it happened, but after Dumbledore died and I realized it was all down to me, I started learning and practicing and got more powerful by the day.

"And the power hasn't dropped any, that I can tell. That's why I live in the Muggle world and hardly do any magic. I can't control my spells very well. If you want me to banish something to the moon or drill a hole through a mountain, I can probably do it. If you want a warming charm in the winter, you'd better do it yourself."

"I was wondering about that," Daphne acknowledged. "I thought you'd simply rejected the magical world."

"So what does this have to do with what we were talking about, stealing from rich wizards?" Tracey asked.

"If I wanted to take over the ministry, do you think anyone could stop me? I could just walk in to the ministry building, kill or stun everyone there, and announce I was in charge. I'm probably more powerful than every auror put together. Who could stop me?"

"I'm not sure it's quite that easy to take over," Tracey objected. "Even if you beat everyone in a fight, how are you going to rule?"

"And there are rumors about all sorts of emergency defenses at the ministry," Daphne put in.

Harry shrugged. "I'd rule by terror, I guess. Or get some lackeys to do the day-to-day work. Haven't really put any thought into it. As for emergency defenses, maybe, but they didn't stop Voldemort, did they?

"Anyway, those aren't what I'm getting at. The point is, there's nothing to keep me from doing anything I want, except myself. There's nothing keeping me from becoming a monster, except myself. Nobody can be trusted with power. I'm not so egotistical that I think I'm the one person in the world who's above temptation, so that means I can't be trusted with power, which means I have to be very careful about using it, to make sure I don't abuse it at all. Slippery slopes, you know. And it's not like I ever had any good role models, growing up. That makes it even worse.

"That means I've had to to make some lines that I can't cross. One of those lines is not doing anything to hurt anyone who hasn't done anything to me. And that's why I won't steal from wizards who haven't done anything to me."

Both of the women frowned for a minute, thinking over Harry's revelations.

"What about stealing from people who _have_ done something to you, Harry? Like the Fudges, after the ex-Minister smeared you for a whole year."

"I guess maybe. I'd have to think about it. For the past few months I was mostly thinking about getting away from all that and living quietly."

"I agree with Daphne. We should look into it. And there are plenty of families with Death Eaters who fought you. They should be fair game."

"Huh? Your family had Death Eaters I fought. Both of you. Are you saying I should steal from your families?"

"Of course not. I'd hope you'd exercise some judgment. The other families…" Tracey shrugged. "They're not _my_ family. What do I care what happens to them? They'd throw my family to the wolves just as readily."

Harry shook his head. Daphne knew what he was thinking. "Can we drop family politics for now, and return to Gemma?" she asked.

"Fine. I'll take your word for it for now that she's being abused by her husband. I'll check that myself when and if I meet her. See what she can pay us _without_ stealing from her husband, or else what she can do to make it worth my while. I'm not against robbing, say, the Fudges, but we'll need to decide who and work out the details.

"And Tracey? I'm not against something long-term and exclusive with you, but you have to ask me about it, not just tell me to stay away from other women."

And so, two weeks, an owl, and a dozen phone calls later, Daphne accompanied Harry to the Williams residence, oddly enough an apartment in a Muggle city, albeit a very nice one. In order to accompany him, she'd had to persuade him that she wasn't _that_ pregnant. It was rather funny, watching the prospective father turn into a worry-wart before her eyes.

Not so funny was her other line of persuasion, that she wasn't really that important for their business. Harry lined up contracts and Tracey did the work, and Daphne sat in the office and looked pretty and fussed with papers and answered the _telephone_. (The utterly useless Muggle Studies professor hadn't even taught them the correct term for the device.) Harry tried to tell her that she was doing important work, but had to admit that they could do without her for a day or two.

In any event, Daphne found herself with Harry in a large apartment building in London one fine Monday morning.

"Daphne! Come in, come in. And hello, Harry, I recognize you. You must be my kidnapper."

She had to grab Harry's arm to pull him in. She had told Gemma to dress to impress. She had done so. Harry seemed poleaxed. Quite amusing, to be honest.

"Ah, Gemma, you don't plan on going out like that, do you?"

The brunette in the doorway, whose beauty was barely impaired by the recent lines around her eyes, winked. "Kidnappers have to be paid. I'd seen Harry around once or twice since, you know, and saw that he had grown up to be quite tasty. If I'm going to be kidnapped, I might as well enjoy it, right? Come on, Harry, before kidnapping me you wanted to make sure I was worth it. You should defile me on my marital bed, don't you think? You can make your test and I can give my husband a message."

That finally shook Harry back into awareness of anything besides perfumed skin. "Ah, no, wait a minute. Part of the arrangement was that I needed to talk to you to make sure you were worth kidnapping. Oh, wait, I get it. You can put a robe on, Gemma. Defiling you certainly is tempting, but what we meant by 'worth it' was making sure that your husband is a bad man or you are in danger and that you can pay to be taken away."

A problem came up. Gemma wasn't really in danger, or if she was it was her own fault.

"I just can't stand it! It's 'be careful what you say to the neighbors' this and 'here's how Muggles do it' that and 'keep your wand out of sight'. Every day it's something more. And the obliviators have been here three times in the past two months and they say I'll be arrested the next time they have to come."

Gemma, clever Ravenclaw though she had been, could not or would not learn to live amongst Muggles. Her husband, a younger son of a wealthy Muggle family, had found it deliciously amusing to buy a beautiful wife from a family which had persecuted him and his fellow newcomers to the magical world.

"Does he beat you? Abuse you other ways?" Harry pressed her.

Under his relentless gaze, Gemma eventually let the truth out. "No, he doesn't beat me. He's not very nice all the time and he makes me live here, surrounded by all these _Muggles_ who can't do any magic and will never understand me."

Harry and Daphne stepped aside to confer.

"What do you think?"

"I am sorry, Harry. I really thought she was in trouble. What do we do now?"

"I don't know. We can't just walk away, can we? She knows who we are and she can tell the aurors or just anyone that we were going to kidnap her, and even the morons at the ministry would figure out that I probably got you and Tracey."

"We have to take her, don't we? I'm scared, Harry. I won't go back to my husband, I won't."

"Yah, I think we do." He looked as if he had just swallowed the most bitter pill in the world. "I don't think I can wipe her memory of the past hour without totally wiping her mind. I think I'll take her to India and leave her there. Enough people there speak English that she should be able to find a job and a place to live."

There was a bit of a problem because Gemma wanted to steal everything of value in the apartment, and complained bitterly when Harry wouldn't let her.

There was a bit more of a problem when Gemma dropped her dressing gown and invited Harry to ravish her "just for a bit of fun before I'm carried off against my will.

Harry refused. He was polite about it, and deflected her suggestion with the observation that the woman he was living with would be upset if he slept with anyone else. Even Daphne's offer, to keep watch for Gemma's husband while Harry wore Gemma out too much to resist being kidnapped, didn't change his mind; he deflected that by saying they'd have to hurry if Gemma were to be on time to meet her friend at the Taylor house … and for Harry to follow her to the Taylor house so he could steal from the family of a Wizengamot member who had voted to convict him for defending himself from dementors.

He told her later that the real reason for his refusal was that Gemma had really offended him. "It wasn't just her bigotry and it wasn't just her wanting to cheat and insult her husband. It was the way she was trying to manipulate me, coax me into things I don't want, and then kept pushing when I said No. I'm really annoyed with her, and I don't want to have sex with anyone I'm annoyed with. That would start a bad habit for sleeping with you and Tracey.

Not having another witch for Harry to slake his lusts on: bad.

Not having Harry learning to slake his lusts while angry: very, very good.

Overall, Daphne scored this day as a win.

...ooo000ooo...

Daphne checked on the children before she went to bed.

She didn't check on Alison, though the girl was barely more than a child herself. It wasn't, really, her business where their "kidnapping victim" slept, nor what she and Harry did when they were alone. Neither of the two was complaining about their arrangement. Alison had jumped into bed with her "kidnapper" at her first chance. Daphne didn't know which of them had first put the move on the other, but they both seemed happy enough and Alison didn't need to be drunk to sleep with him, and it let Daphne sleep alone, so she was happy enough, too.

Daphne liked and respected her second husband, possibly even loved him in some way, but most importantly she needed him. She needed him to provide for her children. She needed him for at least a couple more years so that she – or rather, her false identity as the Polish bride of a British subject – could legally stay in the United Kingdom. And this meant that she needed him to be content with his "family" life. Preferably without sleeping with her. Really, the current arrangement was just about ideal, from where she sat.

Although Daphne would certainly make sure that when _her_ daughters were sixteen, they wouldn't be sleeping with a man ten years older!

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>: Yes, another chapter is coming. I'm a jerk, but not such a jerk as to leave the story here.


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